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John Matthew Fox’s “Literary Pillars”

1. Blood Meridianby Cormac McCarthy. I once suggested this as a fixture on high school reading lists and a principal told me parents would riot. I still think it belongs in every possible canon.2. The Border Trilogyby Cormac McCarthy. More ways to describe lightening than you thought possible.3. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

4. Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. The great novel of ideas.

5. House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski. Of course the inventive typography is wonderful, but the pathos within the erudition makes this book sing.

6. Blindness by Jose Saramago. Taught me the power of a “what if” premise.

7. Snow by Orhan Pamuk.

8. The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg by Deborah Eisenberg. Compression, compression, compression. She is the best at it.

9. The Collected Stores of Flannery O’Connor by Flannery O’Connor. She knows the human heart, all that is wicked and all that is good.

10. After the Quake by Haruki Murakami. Contains two of best short stories ever written. The rest are pretty good too.

11. Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. Cats, classical music and wells.

12. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. I don’t mean to get all Heraclitan on you, but I don’t know how you can be the same person after reading this book.

13. Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace. This entry is a placeholder for all of Wallace’s nonfiction. Read it all.

14. The Children’s Hospital by Chris Adrian. If any contemporary writers have imaginations better than Adrian, I haven’t read them.

15. The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq. A primer on the wrong ways to think about sex.

16. 2666 by Roberto Bolano. I wish all novels were this ambitious.

17. Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges. This is an infinite library.

18. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. The funniest book I’ve ever read.

19. Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry. Teaches you what the world should be and what it shouldn’t.

20. The Art of the Commonplace by Wendell Berry. The book I quote more than any other.

21. The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene. Gives religion legs and heart.

22. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. The sheer force of language makes me feel inadequate as a writer.

John Matthew Fox‘s fiction has appeared in Shenandoah, Third Coast, Bellingham Review,Tampa Review, and Los Angeles Review. He is currently working on a novel. He’s written about books for the Los Angeles Times, The Rumpus,Open Letters Monthly, and The Quarterly Conversation. He blogs at BookFox.